Tom Edwards, BBC London transport correspondent, has written an interesting article on the causes of rail delays.  Among the findings:

• only 4% of delays are due to severe weather
• in total 25% of delays are due to external causes (weather, cable theft, etc) – which means that 75% are due to the rail industry itself.
• routine maintenance funding for tracks has fallen by around 30-40 per cent in just four years
• the number of earthwork failures (such as landslips) jumped from 61 in 2008 to 144 in 2012 – even before the recent wet winter

You can read the whole article at http://www.ethosjournal.com/topics/transport/item/502-why-are-trains-late

Thanks to Charlie Rose for tweeting the original reference.